"You're sure you want to do this?" I asked for the third time.

"Yes. It'll be fine." Answered Frei, slightly annoyed by now. Her timid facade was getting thin.

We were getting strange stares from the people in the subway.

Well I was a very occidental looking young woman, looking like she got out of a classic/punk model show. That wasn't of my own volition by the way. I had a really hyper-excited friend who loved dressing me up.

I was super uncomfortable, the shorts-jeans I was wearing were giving away way too much leg for my taste, and the shirt with the leather jacket were way too fashion-heavy.

At the least the shoes were practical, more like boots really, giving away the punk vibe.

But I wasn't the one getting the most stares.

Frei was currently wearing her kimono and hakama, and carrying a wooden bokken. She wasn't really bothered by the onlookers, she was focused.

We were a strange looking duo to say the least.

Someone even tried to touch my ass in one of the wagons. His hand got violently struck by a wooden sword before it even came close.

I silently thanked Frei. That wasn't a novelty of my body I wanted to try.

Shiwazaki-sensei's dojo wasn't far away from my old apartement, which meant it was pretty far away from our new.

After one hour of public transportation, and fifteen minutes of walking, we arrived at the old dojo, situated on a classic japanese sacred mountain. With a traditional temple on top. The building was used for the training sessions.

We passed next to three relatively young burly men running up and down the hundred stairs to the bottom. They must've arrived late for the lesson, as they were obviously being punished.

I recognized most of them.

They didn't.

They looked at me pretty carefully too.

Yeah, now that I was in the other sexe's boots (literally), I saw how blatantly men could look at woman.

They didn't even notice Frei. She was making herself discreet. Wasn't really difficult when you were accompanied by a 5 foot 8 (178cm) swedish-french girl.

When we arrived close to the top, we could hear multiple "Heeeeiiiiii!" being shouted repeatedly.

It was a nice day, they were training outside.

Reiki Shiwazaki, the fifty year old teacher and father was circling around ten or so japanese martial arts students.

He immediately spotted us appearing out of the staircase.

"Pfiuuuu." I exhaled, a bit winded by the climb.

I saw my old sensei walking towards us.

"What are you two girls doing in my school?" He asked us aggressively, almost spitting the word 'girl'. His english was perfect. "Those grounds are not authorized for sight-seeing." He looked at me, seemed to almost recognize me, but only got confused a bit.

Frei stepped forward.

He stared at her for a bit, before realization struck him.

"Mizuna?"

"Frei" My friend corrected. "Ohayô Otou-sama."

That seemed to anger him even more.

He began to quickly speak to her in Japanese, which I could barely follow.

He asked her about Frei's mother, to which she responded that he only needed to give a call to know. Then he asked what she was doing here, that she should have stayed in Germany. To which she responded very coldly, that she had left Germany five years ago and trained with Hailey Skröskind close to Bern.

He clenched his teeth at those words. He pointed the wooden sword that never left his side towards me.

"Sore-wa?" Roughly translated, he just asked me what I was.

"Tomodachi-desu." A friend, Frei answered. She lowered his sword with hers.

That felt nice, she considered me her friend too. I would have rather been something more but hey, I knew the friendzone was an impossible wall to climb in my current state.

He looked at me, my face was familiar and it was disturbing him.

He finally faced his daughter again.

"So, what are you doing here?"

"I want you to apologize to me and mother, I challenge you."

He looked perplexed, then began to laugh.

The students stopped training and looked at us inquisitively.

"You!? My little fleeing girl comes back to try to bite her own father? You're juste like your mother, I knew it was a mistake."

Frei looked hurt for an instant. I saw it, and Shiwazaki-sensei did too.

It made him smile.

He clapped his hands and instructed everyone to make a circle.

"Bring me two sets of protection gear, even though she's the only one who's gonna need some."

Arrogance and hate was almost the only thing flowing in his blood.

It made me sad to realize that even his own daughter couldn't bring something else in this man's soul.

Kendo-gear was brought to Frei and Shiwazaki-sensei. After they put it on, they faced each other. Everyone was staring silently. Most of the students didn't know what was happening, but most likely never saw a private match with the 'great' Shiwazaki-sama so were very interested.

I stood alone, closing part of the circle on my own, standing behind Frei.

"Till one of us surrenders." The master swordsman announced.

That wasn't good, she should have refused, but my friend nodded.

I grimaced.

"Let's begin... father." She said in english.

And the fight began.

Like our first match together, Frei and her father circled each other. Looking for flaws, errors in stance or grip.

Then without warning, he jumped forwards, striking a violent Sho-men towards his own daughter. A strike that even with head protection, could leave you with a serious concussion.

But she wasn't surprised by it, she expected this level of violence from her own father.

She actually did what I had done to her. She dodged and planted the pommel of her bokken in his stomach.

That made me grin. She only saw me do it once and had copied it to perfection. Geniuses are scary I tell you.

A painful grunt could be heard from Shiwazaki-san, and he immediately tried to back off.

But unlike me she didn't wait for him to catch his breath, and went on the offensive.

I may have underestimated her, she was making this fight pretty one-sided.

Some "Oooh's!" could be heard from the public. Some didn't seem to believe this tall (relatively) japanese mixed-blood was cornering the great swordsman.

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Woman weren't allowed up here. Most of them just couldn't have followed up with the rigorous training exercise, but the worst was the blatant sexism.

I had quickly understood how much inferior Shiwazaki-sensei thought woman to be. It still baffled me he could have been in a relationship with something other than his own muscles.

As I was dozing off for a bit, lost in my thoughts, I almost missed when Frei managed to pause her blade inches away from her opponent's throat.

"I won" She stated simply.

I cussed. She had misunderstood something.

"Frei dodge!" I shouted.

This fight wasn't to the killing blow, it was to the surrender. That meant unconscious or yielding.

Frei looked at me. My voice only distracted her even more.

Shiwazaki-san pushed the sword on his throat aside and stabbed her with the point of his blade with extreme violence.

She bent down, managing not to vomit.

She lost her advantage, and he was now striking her repeatedly. She was barely able to soften the blows.

She didn't utter a sound, but I could hear her bones barely holding on.

She finally fell down, but still didn't say anything. I knew from our conversation yesterday how far she was willing to go, and that dumbass wasn't going to yield.

I felt my feet move before my brain ordered them to.

I got between them before Shiwazaki-sensei could kick her on the ground. He wouldn't have hesitated.

"Stop this, she's down." I told him in japanese. "The way you won was dishonourable."

He mocked me, hatred filling his voice, easily heard through the armor, and answered in english.

"You strangers don't even know what honour means. She came to humiliate me in front of my students, but couldn't even follow the rules I set for the match. She's as dumb as her mother is."

He wasn't talking about the match anymore. He was resenting something old.

"...you were making all the rules, without anyone ever agreeing to them, who do you think you are to decide how we live?" Frei said softly, her tone was sad and pained. She was still trying to catch her breath.

"I make the rules because I am your father. I know what's best for my child, but you and your mother couldn't even accept that. I don't need idiots incapable of recognizing this."

I saw Frei clenching her fists on the ground, not from the pain.

I sighed, I was going to do something stupid.

I had always been chivalrous with women I liked, it's horribly stereotypical I know. You may believe otherwise all you want, you are aways influenced by the world you live in. And I was no exception. I've always tried way too hard to be a gentleman. I get friendzoned a lot, yeah, I wonder why?

"Frei, give me your sword."

She removed her head protection and stared at me. She had beautiful brown eyes, didn't notice that before.

"It's my fight."

"I only want to get this prick's head out of his ass. And I too have a score to settle."

It didn't look like I had convinced her. I wasn't exactly telling her the truth so it was no wonder.

Shiwazaki-san laughed.

"Do we know each other? I think I remember you from somewhere. I don't care. Little girl, you shouldn't meddle in things you don't know anything about and go back to your shopping and make-up, you will get your pretty ass bruised. I'd give you to my students first, I'd bother fighting you second."

I didn't like what he meant by 'giving' me to his students.

"Little girl?" I smiled at him. "Well then you must be a little man then. You already beat a woman once today? What's stopping you from beating another one? Tell me, coward."

He didn't laugh anymore.

"You should shut up bitch. If you want it so bad sure. Someone bring this whore a sword and a mask." A student immediately got up and went looking for what the master requested.

"Sias-chan..." Frei whispered my name, fortunately I was the only one to hear her. "Don't do it, I'm the one supposed to protect you, you won't beat him."

I knelt in front of her. An old, sad feeling, crept inside my bones.

"Did you know I liked magic tricks when I was a kid?" I told her.

She looked at me quizzicaly.

"Promise me you won't tell my mother." I asked.

"Sias-chan?"

"Please."

Something in my expression changed her mind. She gave me her sword.

"Good enough I guess." I halfheartedly smiled, got up, and faced my old sensei.

"You still need the protection." He noted.

"I don't wear head protection."

That made him flinch. He should have known, right now and then. But he was too close-minded to see the truth. I was gonna have to change that.

"I had a student... an arrogant bastard much like you who said the same. You two related?"

"You could say he's my brother."

"That bitch's Skröskind had another child? A girl to boot? I take back what I said, I'll enjoy facing you. I hope you're better than your brother, he was a real wuss."

One of the reasons I left. I didn't handle him badmouthing my mother well.

I didn't want to do something I regretted later.

Well I was definitely going to now.

I didn't even put a stance up.

"Remove your head protection, you won't need it right? It's not a match we're having. It's a fight."

He boiled. Furious wasn't enough a word to describe how he looked.

He threw his helmet towards his pupils, it hit one of them straight in the face. The poor guy, looking barely 16, yelped in pain.

"You can't even handle a basic stance? And you DARE? Look!" Reiki was talking to the crowd around him. "You're gonna see me break a bitch in half and then you're gonna take turns raping her!"

One or two student seemed enclined to obey that order, but most of the young japanese martial artists looked horrified.

I smirked. I didn't even need to try. He was already destroying his reputation himself.

He ran towards me.

"They'll take turns because you can't."

He froze.

"What?"

"Well yeah, since her mother left you for another woman, you coudn't get it hard however you tried."

"You? YOU! BITCH HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT?" Now he was literally exploding, salivating in rage like a rabid dog.

He launched a furious assault against me, trying very hard to kill me.

I dodged, his stance was full of openings, his strikes way too unbalanced to pose a real threat to me.

"You told me. Well not with words... That's why you hate women so much, you felt betrayed."

"SHUT UP, DIE!" Some of the students were actually trying to stop us now, but couldn't really get closer without getting knocked out. I saw a few hesitating to call the cops. Frei had backed off terrified for me but unable to get on her feet. The sight angered me a bit.

He did a vertical strike towards my right temple. A killing blow without head protection.

I deflected the hit and glided my sword on his neck. Without any strength. Just a clear message.

If the fight was with steel, your head would be on the ground.

He fumed even more.

"AAAAAAAAAAAH!" He shouted while unleashing blow after blow, trying to break my arms, my ribs, my head.

I didn't even bother moving most of the time, using my sword to redirect all that strength in other places. Like the ground.

He fell hard on the stone tiles of the temple.

"CHIKUSO, SHINE!" He yelled while getting back up.

That was really not nice. You never said that in japanese. I also censored the next sentence about pussy, just know it's one of the most vulgar things you could ever say.

"You couldn't accept she would leave you. So you couldn't accept your own daughter. And so she left too. And here you are,... a coward. Who'd rather hit his own daughter than apologize."

I dodged a vicious kick to the shinbone. He couldn't even talk anymore. But he still heard me, at each of my words he grunted, same as if I had hit him.

I continued my monologue. "You'd rather die before that won't you? You don't want to believe it's no-one's fault. And you can't accept it could be yours. So you hate everything and everyone else. Like the weak man you are. "

His next strike wasn't as strong as before. He was getting exhausted. It was a pathetic, desperate stab.

It was time.

I saw Sias-chan dodge every strike like it was nothing. She wasn't scared. She was simply beautiful. I only saw such grace in a fight once before.

She was her mother's daughter after all.

My friend never showed any of this during the short training sessions we had together. No. I corrected myself. She wasn't doing anything special. It was her opponent's fault. He was making absurd mistakes.

She had never shown such confidence and control.

Otou-sama, he was not in control right now. He was so furious he had lost any semblance of reason. He couldn't understand how she knew.

I didn't either. She shouldn't know about my mother. Even Hailey-sensei didn't.

Still, Sias knew.

And she hurt him with it.

More than it should have been possible with mere words.

My father was being deconstructed, brick by brick, a sentence at a time.

He couldn't talk anymore. He looked old. Broken.

He tried a piercing hit in the stomach, like he did to me.

She simply took his sword away from his hands and held her mouth close to his ears.

She whispered something.

My father's fury was replaced with horror.

He tried to struggle. In vain.

She held him close.

She continued whispering.

"Please..." Pleaded my father.

She let him go.

He fell limply on the ground.

No one moved. No one uttered a sound.

There was only terrifying silence. Broken by quiet sobs.

"I'm so sorry... I'm so sorry... please..."

Shiwazaki-san looked up to his daughter, who was looking at me with an undecipherable expression.

"Frei... I'm so sorry... I..." He seemed to realize something. He got up and left the temple.

I winced. That probably meant he failed. I was gonna regret what I'd done. Even though it was his decision. His choice. I would have to live with the fact I had forced it on him.

"Frei, are you alright?" I asked.

"Yes, yes, nothing's broken I think." She answered halfmindedly.

"Good. Let's go. You'll talk to you father later. He needs to process a lot of things. We'll come back I promise." I held out my hand.

She grabbed it, and muffled a cry of pain.

"We're going to see a doctor."

"Sias-chan... I'm fine really."

"I need my bodyguard in top condition."

That seemed to shut her up, and we slowly climbed down the mountain.

"Sias?"

"Yeah?"

"What did you say to him?"

I looked at her.

I'd never seen such intensity in a gaze, such an expression. Something old looked at me. Through me.

"The truth."